Published on April 9, 2021

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How Mentorship Programs Can Help Students Unlock Their Potential

• Post author By tbrg
• Post date April 9, 2021
• No Comments on How Mentorship Programs Can Help Students Unlock Their Potential

 

 

We’re generally surrounded by people who want something from us. Parents, teachers, relatives, even some friends. Everyone has their own expectations from us and our lives. And in the middle of all this noise, we tend to forget what we wanted from our own life. Maybe that’s why we need to add someone to this mix, who’ll help us find that path back.

Here enters a Mentor

We all have fuzzy definitions of what a mentor is. A guru? A guide? A teacher? A holy man? A beaming light from the heavens? Well, it could be all of the above, or it could be something else entirely. Depends on what you want. Think of a mentor as just someone to speak with, who can give you a perspective that you never thought existed, who can offer ‘empathetic assistance’ to the questions in your head.

Mentorship is a way to have a frank and open conversation, where you can put your dreams on the table. If this person is a good mentor, they will respond to it with a genuine concern for your ambitions. They won’t put their own ambitions into your head. They can encourage and inspire you, be that sounding board for your doubts, maybe even introduce you to a new career path. This isn’t therapy, it’s a peer you can talk to who’ll help widen your horizons.

Now, why would they do that?

A mentor is someone who doesn’t have a stake in your life, so if you do something wrong, they aren’t going to scold you or shout at you. They have their own lives and their own mistakes to make. Mentors are people who feel like helping others out. They’ve been through the same stuff you’re probably going through – The exam stress, the worry about colleges, about careers, about life. Maybe they had a mentor when they were starting off, or maybe they wish they had one and feel like making sure you do. They’re just there to be an objective voice, to present a different view to the same problem. To tell you how it really is, to not sugar coat things for you.

We often have problems but are too afraid to ask for help. Wouldn’t it be nice to speak to someone who’s faced it as well? If you are confused about colleges, wouldn’t it be nice to speak with someone who’s in Harvard? If you want to be an engineer, wouldn’t you want someone from Google to tell you how to get there? To be a writer, wouldn’t it be great to share a word with a published author? And that’s how mentorship programs help you out. They connect you with mentors. Literally, just that.

You might think that it’s not for you because you’re still young. But we’re more confused when we’re young. We’re carrying more questions when we’re young. We’re also up for a challenge and ready to make changes faster in our lives. We don’t feel the weight of the world yet, and it feels like an exploration. As it should.

But why mentorship for a high school student?

• It accelerates your progress by removing obstacles.

• You can test out ideas that you might not be comfortable sharing with others.

• It can help you gain clarity to find your path.

• You develop effective communication skills, chatting with people apart from your friends and

  family.

• They help you see the pitfalls that might come your way.

• It helps boost your confidence.

• Set yourself apart from the rest. It could almost be considered a 21st-century skill to have a mentor.

• You can possibly tap into the network and contacts that they have.

In your life, you will have multiple mentors. People who will come in and out of your life, to help you move just a bit more forward. This isn’t about moving mountains, but helping you gain the momentum you need, to build the life you want. And along the way, to make some new friends.

Always know that mentors come in all forms. Who or what has been a mentor for you? Share below.

Published on March 11, 2021

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10 Important 21st Century Skills that High School Students Should Learn while in School

• Post author By tbrg
• Post date March 11, 2021

 

 

This concept of ‘21st-century skills’ is thrown around a lot, most often by people born in the 20th century. We often reject it, thinking that we have an entire century left to learn these skills, so why hurry now? Well, as any Ivy league mentor will tell you, they aren’t going to take you in unless you have these skills.

Not to use scare tactics, but the fact of the matter is that high school students have higher hopes from themselves, and in turn, higher pressure is put on them. Bringing these skills into your life will ease that pressure. Don’t look at these skills as something boring or an extension of school. Make them fun so that they become a part of your daily life.

1. Know your tech

This doesn’t mean having the latest iPhone or being a streamer. It means to know what’s happening in the world of technology. We have transparent TVs, we have brain implants, we have robot dogs that can fire guns, there is something new every day. You don’t need to become a coder necessarily, but the future is going to be based entirely on tech. You don’t want to become like your grandparents struggling with their phones.

2. Texting isn’t communication

We think of effective communication as another subject to study. But most often we just don’t know how to communicate. It isn’t about making a plan with your friends to meet up. It is about your thoughts cutting across the noise to get what you really want from people. This post-pandemic-Zoom world has created its own issues in terms of communication as well, and we need to adapt accordingly.

3. Adapt to survive

Sounds a bit cliché, but today’s digital landscape is changing at a breakneck speed. So by the time you graduate high school, the schooling system and the job market would have changed. So what will you do then? If you don’t learn how to be flexible and adaptable, you’re probably going to be left confused.

4. Make your world global

Everyone knows if there is a fire on a small island in the Caribbean, while it’s happening. That is the beauty of this connected world we live in. Earlier you probably had to wait for the newspapers to cover it first. But with this new dynamic comes more responsibility in understanding different cultures and perspectives, not just your local ones. One word could be a compliment somewhere, and an insult elsewhere. How would you know the difference if you don’t expand your horizon?

5. Be creative

This isn’t about becoming an artist. To consider the arts as the only form of being creative is outdated. Today you’re competing on a global business scale and creative solutions are the key to the game. If you were a student entrepreneur, how would you train your mind to think out of the box, to find a different answer for an old problem? Don’t think of creativity as just a talking point to impress people.

6. Social skills aren’t for your parent’s dinner parties

Nobody is telling you to be an extrovert or the center of attention. But you can’t be afraid of opening your mouth either. Collaboration has become an integral part of any job nowadays, and you need to have basic Social Skills to get the job done. Funnily even your online behaviour makes a difference, so you need to develop digital social skills as well.

7. There is a difference between information and knowledge

It would take you multiple lifetimes to see all the content on YouTube. There is a sea of information out there, and it’s easy to get lost without actually gaining anything from it. This might not seem like a ‘skill’, but it’s probably one of the most important ones. When you have so much data, how do you process it into knowledge?

8. Don’t criticise. Critique instead.

We often think that when we’re criticising something, we’re being critical thinkers. But often it’s just based on emotions, not on analysis. And therein lies the difference. Critical thinking is the ability to analyse, think clearly and understand the connections between various ideas.

9. Staring at a light bulb isn’t the same as changing it

We spend so much time in front of a computer, just switching it on makes us think that we’re being productive. But not really. We can all agree that we live in an era of distractions, where a million things are vying for our attention. We jump from one to another, not realising that we have the nine-second attention span of a goldfish. We need to reclaim the word ‘productivity’ back from presentations and brochures, to use it as an actual skill.

10. You need to hold your own reigns

It’s pretty straightforward. You have to give yourself directions in life. Taking the Initiative is a skill that can be developed. Sure, leadership workshops, mentors, etc., will give you perspective. But at the end of the day, you will need to learn how to find your own footing and push yourself forward.

This is just a small cross-section of the skills that fit the need of the hour. What do you feel are some of the other skills that high school students need today?

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Easy High School Checklist: Freshman through Senior Year

• Post author By tbrg
• Post date March 11, 2021
• No Comments on Easy High School Checklist: Freshman through Senior Year

High school can be very hard, but its new shift to online mode has made things way more complicated. However, luckily not much has changed when it comes to the measures one should be taking to ace that high school career. Even though “taking life as it comes” is a great motto way to live by, having a strategy enhances the results and brings in more certainty. Every year in high school can be uniquely challenging, so we at Big Red Education have made a high school Checklist for you to have a smooth sail through these four years.

Freshman Year (9th Grade):

1. Study! Study! Study! Your grades now contribute to your overall GPA used for college admissions. And seeing the fact that it only gets harder and more rigorous in the senior years, it’s better to have had a strong background in your early years.

2. Get involved! You don’t have to join every club, but at least find one interest that you’re passionate about. Over the years, we have seen how college admissions officers stress upon taking one thing up early in your high school career and sticking to it throughout. This is a more reliable way to get your foot in the door at a prestigious college.

3. Identify your field of interest for a career or major through online research. Even though any “Liberal Arts” college will always have your back with their impressive flexibility in terms of courses. However, looking into it early on and being sure by the time you graduate from high school is not all bad either.

4. Start making a list of accomplishments, awards, and recognition you receive. Even though you can get to it at the twelfth hour in your senior year and still get it done, maintaining a list gives you a sense of accomplishment as well as a realistic idea of where you stand.

Sophomore Year (10th Grade):

1. Make use of your summer! Work, play sports, volunteer, or attend a summer school. Earning recognition, certificates, as well as new friends and connections through these experiences, pay off in the long run.

2. Begin attending college and career fairs or events. This would save you a lot of time in your senior year touring colleges and also give you a sense of the kind of surroundings you’d prefer during college.

3. Research funding for colleges including scholarships, grants, loans, etc. Some of us have the means of attending college without any of these and some of us don’t. In any case, this helps take the immense amount of load on your parents off their shoulders and would also open up many more college options for you that were previously out of your reach.

4. Consider taking a practice test to prepare for PSAT. Many of the schools that conduct SATs, do have PSAT for their freshman and sophomore students. However, if your school doesn’t, it’s not a bad idea to register for one and get a head start on the process.

Junior Year (11th Grade):

1. Build a resume with your list of activities, awards, and recognition. By this time in high school, we have a good sense of the extra as well as co-curricular activities that interest us and have taken part in enough of them to start building a resume.

2. Begin taking on leadership roles in your school council, extracurricular activities, or sports team. This would not only help you during your school life but help your college application stand out from the rest.

3. Decide and register for ACT/SAT. By this time, you’d have gotten a good idea of how the test works and it would be good for you to take an official test so that you could start thinking about a retest if the score doesn’t come as expected.

4. Learn more about Early Decision, Early Action, and Regular deadlines. In most cases, it’s best to apply early. So it would help you in your application process to start looking into it as early as you can.

Senior Year (12th Grade):

1. Make sure you’re set to complete all graduation requirements for both high school as well as the colleges you’re applying for. A good way to go about it would be to check the “requirements” section on their websites and not turn a blind eye to it until it’s very late.

2. Retake SAT/ACT if you feel you can get a better score! Do not worry about the number of retests because colleges don’t care about the number of attempts you took, just your best score!

3. Start requesting your teachers and guidance counselors early to write letters of recommendation. It can get very hard and hectic to get those letters when the entire senior class is rushing to get it done at the last minute.

4. Complete and submit college scholarship applications before the deadline! In most cases, colleges have their scholarship deadlines much before their regular and we don’t want to miss that at any cost.

5. Lastly, as college acceptance letters arrive, explore the campus, the financial aid package, and other things that matter to “you” and then make the right decision!

Share this checklist with your friends and family so they also have a clear idea of how to go about doing this and it turns into a cakewalk for them as well!

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How to Become a Straight-A Student in High School

• Post author By tbrg
• Post date March 11, 2021
• No Comments on How to Become a Straight-A Student in High School

“A little organization goes a long way”. Becoming a straight-A student is not so much about study hacks or brutal cramming sessions. The path towards academic success has a lot to do with disciplined time management, organization, and smart study techniques that focus more on comprehension than straightforward memorization. In today’s blog, we will be discussing some of the strategies that real-time top-scoring students use to get the best possible grades and which can be found in a book written by Cal Newport titled “How to Become a Straight-A Student”.

Today we will be covering only some of the initial concepts of the book, the so-called study basics. Since the book is rich in advice for school and studying, I highly recommend you to explore the rest of the book.

The first thing you need to consider is a simple equation. Work accomplished equals time spent multiplied by the intensity of focus. The concept that studying in short bursts of time in a regular pattern is more important to your information retention than trying to compensate for long periods of procrastinating, with study sessions that last for hours. Effective time management can be achieved in five minutes a day, in a system comprised of a calendar, where you should schedule specific-time events and a list which you should carry with you at all times.

The idea is to use five minutes each morning to write down the list of tasks you have to complete that day and go through the reminders of yesterday to update your calendar each morning. In that way, you create a self-sustaining time management system that relies on simple tools. Basically, as you plan your day, your page or piece of paper should be divided into two columns – a list for your “today’s” schedule” and a list for “things to remember”. Today’s schedule should be filled with dedicated time slots assigned for specific classes or tasks. “Things to remember” should be a place where you write down new assignments and tasks that are created during that day and which you need to migrate into your calendar the following morning during your daily five minutes of time management.

The type of tools you use to achieve this system should take into account your preferences and lifestyle; you can either go digital or analog, opt for a more complex planner or a simple piece of paper folded in your pocket. While scheduling tasks during the day you should take into account its priority in your overall list. Most important tasks should be tackled first, in case they’re not time-specific, and less important tasks should be tackled last. If something goes wrong with those less important tasks, you can always migrate them to a later time. Besides that, for the simple hierarchy of importance, it’s also crucial to leave enough buffer time in each one of your time slots to anticipate mistakes or delays.

Even if you excel at time management habits, beating procrastination is still key to allow you to actually *do the stuff.*

The book discusses five main strategies that can help you with this:

1. Keeping a work progress journal, where you record what you worked on or whether you were able to complete all the required tasks. It’s basically a habit tracker for your work that relies on a streak method to keep you motivated.

2. Eating the right food and the correct amount of water to boost your levels of energy and focus.

3. Making an event out of the worst tasks, which means that you can go to a different place to study, breaking your routine and creating a sense of novelty. It also allows you to block some time in your calendar since you’re going to a different, probably more distant place.

4. Building a routine for daily studying by deciding on which days you will work on specific subjects or topics, at what times, and for how long. As work starts transforming into a habit, it will be easier to convince yourself to start studying.

5. Choosing the hard days. This means that when all hell breaks loose, designating a couple of days as “hard days” will isolate time of high-intensity work from other regular work. A couple of tips for scheduling hard days is informing your close friends that you will be going through a hard study period as well as scheduling entertaining or relaxing activities right after you finish all of your work.

6. Furthermore, straight-A students know when, where and how long they should be studying. Giving a solid answer to these three questions and sticking with them for a long period of time will improve your study routine, and the more consistent your study routine is, the better your results will be. While Cal Newport uses many top-scoring students’ feedback to say that early morning is the best time to study, I prefer to recommend to you whatever schedule your energy levels are at the highest point, be at night, morning or afternoon.

Regarding the space where you should study, the overall recommendation is to study in isolation, somewhere that improves your focus, eliminates distractions, and separates leisure from work. Regarding the question about “how long you should study”, no more than one hour at a time, depending on your level of motivation and energy. Even when you are on a roll, it’s important to take regular breaks and remember to keep your study sessions short overall.

Now that you know how to become a straight-A student, in the comments section share which hack would you want to include in your routine.